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IBPC WINNING POEMS in 2007, Congratulations! |
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Jan 2 07, 21:19
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Group: Gold Member
Posts: 3,822
Joined: 3-August 03
From: Florida
Member No.: 10
Real Name: Elizabeth
Writer of: Poetry
Referred By:Lori Kanter
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IBPC WINNING POEMS FOR DECEMBER 2006 Judge David Kirby First Place: A Poem That Thinks It Has Joined a Circus by Liz Gallagher Inside the Writer's Studio A handkerchief is not an emotional hold-all. A cup of tea does not eradicate all-smothering sensations. A hands-on approach is not the same as a hand-on-a-shoulder willing a chin to lift and an upper lip to stiffen. A forehead resting on fingers does not imply that the grains of sand in an hourglass have filtered through. A set of eyes staring into space is not an indictment that the sun came crashing down in the middle of the night. A sigh that causes trembling and wobbly knees should be henceforth and without warning trapped in a bell jar and retrained to come out tinkling ivories with every gasp. A poem trying to turn a sad feeling on its head does not constitute a real poem, it is a can-can poem dancing on a pin-head and walking a tight-rope with arms pressed tightly by its sides. Judges Comments: While some critics will tell you that movies about movies or plays about plays are self-involved and decadent, sometimes I feel as though poems about poems are the only ones worth writing. Why? Because, at the moment of "getting it," and this applies to the moment of reading the poem as well as writing it, there is no more electric charge than that which comes with seeing a poem strut its stuff. Of course, part of the poem's and the poet's and the reader's achievement is that none of these three essential elements of the artistic experience knows exactly how that experience works. Just as the tightrope walker has to wobble on the wire, so the poem has to shake and tremble in order to startle and amaze as much as this one does. --David Kirby Second Place: There Once Was a Daughter Who Lived in His Shoe by Laurel K. Dodge The Writer's Block In the unmade bed, she had no legs. The fruit that her mouth coveted was bruised, the milk in the dark refrigerator, watery and blue, the bowl in the barren cupboard, cracked and empty. Her legs were watery and blue, her mouth unmade and bruised. She was dark and cracked and empty. She was covetous and blue. She was barren. She had no fruit. She was a cupboard, a bowl, a refrigerator that could not be filled. She was a bed no body slept in. The leash waited, coiled in the dim hall. The dog was dead, the birches, bark peeling, bent; the hill she once scaled, slippery. She was the dimness, the coil, the wait. She was the peeling and the impossible ascent. The dog was dad; she had no legs. The dad was dead. She was unmade. Judges Comments: Is there anyone breathing who does not love fairy tales? The poet Miller Williams says that you ought to be able to explain any poem to a six year-old, and fairy tales do that for you. There's the surface story for the child in us all, but for you adult readers out there, there are elements reminding you that life is not all beautiful princesses and knights in shining armor. There are depths in this poem, disturbing ones: we look closely, we turn away for fear of seeing too much, and then, because of the poet's power to mesmerize, we find that we can't help looking again. --David Kirby Third Place: Escorting a Child Offender to a Wake by Derek Spanfelner The Critical Poet Her body is crumpled plastic laid flat, complexion waxy. Crow's feet mark the tendencies of her nature. Her grandson, my ward, tells me of milk and cookies, the simple tenets she upheld, unquestioned kindnesses. He wrote a poem about it Mom will read in eulogy. We meet the rest outside, who greet each other (hard-shelled and sentimental alike) in the camaraderie of grief. This child, who has shown younger cousins who is boss by stripping their underwear and ignoring their pleas, is a puffy-eyed prize in the open arms of his mother. "My oldest (of eight)," she beams to obscure relatives. The uncle auctions salvaged cars. Knuckles having earned their gold, he asks questions as one acquainted with the ease of plain answers. He offers money because "he's a good kid at heart, always the first to help out." I can't tell him how the boy put his hands around their necks and threatened to kill them if they told. Instead, I note more auspicious behavior, for the man expects to run the value of therapy through his calloused fingers and know the knot will hold. I cannot tell him that no boy is a convertible. That if a dent could be smoothed, another is bound to surface; that where I work, no one is ever fixed. Judges Comments: I'll add this poem to my list as I complete my stint as judge by saying that it, like so many others, could have easily been my first choice. This is a poem that I don't understand, though I offer my lack of comprehension as a supreme compliment. What I want to say is that this poem, like a lot of the many I have read during my time as judge, has what I call a meaningful ambiguity to it, a scary, hypnotic power which lets me know instantly that I'll be reading it again and again and getting more out of it each time. A thriller only works if the audience is slightly behind the detective's perceptions; if you know who done it from the beginning or if you never find out, you'll be disappointed, but if you're poised to shout "Aha!" a few seconds after the mystery's revealed, well, that's art, folks. I'm confident that that's what this poem is doing and will continue to do for me. That's how poetry works. --David Kirby Honorable Mentions: Beans (Curgina) by Denise Ward Lit With Kick! September came like winter's ailing child but left us viewing Valparaiso's pride. Your face was always saddest when you smiled. You smiled as every doctored moment lied. You lie with orphans' parents, long reviled. As close as coppers, yellow beans still line Mapocho's banks. It leads them to the sea; entwined on rocks and saplings, each new vine recalls that dawn in 1973 when every choking, bastard weed grew wild. Solitude by Cherryl E. Garner South Carolina Writer's Workshop There is small art in solitude. It shakes sometimes like random shock, as though one spot explains the arc or one fine point defines the line. There is no talk when none's received, when simple converse meets no mark, as though the circle rolls the ball, as though the line supports the box. There is no black like night assigned to pounding chest and clenched, cold heart, as though the sphere explains the sky, as though void space can break the fall, when locking shut in one timeframe, some voodoo shimmies out one name. Beach by Millard R. Howington South Carolina Writer's Workshop I liked to jog to the pier my one day off and have breakfast, gazing at an ocean through salt stained windows. There was a bar nearby, mainly deserted in the off season and I'd stop in, enjoy a brewski, flirt a little with the waitress there; she loved to draw my attention to the rare big busted patron and ask me if I knew how they got that way. On the slow walk back to my summer rate motel, I skirted water's edge and wondered just how long that little sandpiper with the one leg was going to last.
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Jan 30 07, 16:02
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Group: Gold Member
Posts: 3,822
Joined: 3-August 03
From: Florida
Member No.: 10
Real Name: Elizabeth
Writer of: Poetry
Referred By:Lori Kanter
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Winning Poems for January 2007 Judge Pascale Petit First Place
Wolf Dreams by Laurie Bryo Desert Moon ReviewI wasn't sure what he wanted of me; the ice in winter birches had made the forest slouch into spring. All that winter I peeled and sucked papery bark for the sweet taste. I recognized him from his red tongue, the furtive runs when I entered his dream and we crawled along the forest floor, repenting the dark. I had nothing to bargain with, no deal to make him human. The night was filled with briars and salt. In the summer the air became thick with honeysuckle, slick with mating. Beetles droned in messy beds of clover. We slunk along, weeds stroking my belly. I hadn't yet decided which life was better. Grass combed the plume of my tail. The nights were crystal sharp. I waggled my slit high, what was left of my breasts pushed into a pile of decaying leaves. Who cared how many and how often, I was not entirely his. Eyes of owls glittered in the sleep of trees, tree frogs sang in a green-robed choir. The moon clamped its yellow tooth into my shoulder. I took the whole night inside. What was to become of us I had packed away my white Juliet cap and veil for just such an occasion. I held him like a warm peach in my palm, longed for his juice to run down my chin. Most nights I didn't care about the names they gave me. I held my fingers out to him, felt the tug as my ring fell off, carried my limbs down to the entrance of his den, planted a birch just outside his home as a token of my loyalty. I was free of the chains of consequence. I gave birth to his amber-eyed bastard who without hesitation he devoured. When he becomes old and says he always dreams of me, I shall make myself a meal of him, savor his voluptuous tongue, and suck all the bitterness from his bones. He will not make such promises again. JUDGE'S COMMENTS:First Place Wolf Dreams by Laurie Byro Desert Moon Review This poem creates its own world. It made a deep impression on me from the first reading. It's utterly magical yet I am convinced of its reality, that something important is being vividly communicated. All the senses are employed to persuade me that the emotional heart is true. I can smell and taste it, hear the poem's heartbeat. It's hard to write well about sex but this accomplished, elemental fairytale has a considerable erotic charge. The surprise ending adds an extra edge to the intense love affair and mention of a white Juliet cap and veil keep us anchored in the human despite the wolf persona. The language is taut, lush and has a consistent, lulling rhythm. I love "the sleep of trees" and "The moon clamped // its yellow tooth into my shoulder. I took the whole / night inside" which draw me even further under the poem's spell. --Pascale PetitSecond Place
Brrmm by AnnMarie Eldon MiPoHe drove his engine into me. The fuel was humus, jasmine juice and lapis pigment. My aorta the combustion chamber. His piston upstroke was practised not in the street outside because each time I made him up in a dress and rouge with Rage Red lipstick around his nipples. He therefore had taken it apart and put it together again and again behind closed curtains but with due regard for oil and grease stains. In the confined space his exhaust spin gases were risen in the massed morning when rooks should have been. He prises something jelly-like between thumb and forefinger. Switches on. Leaves one open kiss to balm my bitten bloodying auricular helix. Burns fuel-air iron. One closed kiss to damn revolutions amongst tics who knew vibrations when they fouled the thudderless earth. And hackles trumpet bell-shaped valves. And camshaft a poison promise creeping its oval protrusions. Cam rotors careless as a strumpet's petticoats. Labia red ramsails in a rotational sunset. Talked me up crankshaft cranky. Valve springs snapped into the open position. All position. All pushrod hierarchy. And intermittent male logic which paled the toothed gear phenomena. Afterwards there would be empty rocker arms, the oscillating parts a'fire and a too obvious cylinder head. My ghostpenis on my timing belt his intake legacy. The colliding masses a droolseep upon carpet become road. The internal a sprainblue bruise. Would display mileage despondency. Would walk away. He drove his engine into me. It is still. Still here today. JUDGE'S COMMENTS:Second Place Brrmm by AnnMarie Eldon MiPo
"Brrmm" reminds me of Marcel Duchamp's "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even." In this experimental prose poem a partner is encountered as an engine. The couple become a human/machine hybrid. The language used to describe this metamorphosis is so dense and baroque that the paragraph resembles an assemblage sculpture, all mechanical parts, jasmine juice and lapis pigment. This piece, with its playful agglomeration of textures, like Duchamp's "Large Glass," is both a love machine and a machine of suffering. Despite the surreal construct I believe that I'm reading about real people and real experience. It is indeed "the unexpected meeting, on a dissection table, of a sewing machine and an umbrella," the tender, brutal meeting of one human with another. --Pascale PetitThird Place
untitled by Steve Parker The Critical PoetI had this meet, see, with Sam Beckett's ghost, I was trying very hard to survive, to make something work, trying to be well. The river sent telegraphs, black things that fizzed at nightfall, that sat outside sparking. (They were going to kill me: that was all pretty obvious.) That turkey with no head rode out across the clifftops towards Dun Laoghaire, but we paid him no attention. All day we shuffled on the Liffy bridges looking keen, grunting through our cans. Nightfall we drifted down the antique hoardings, feeling the gut welling in our barrels, doing the tour - the poets, the Provos, Easter 1916, a gun cache in a wardrobe... me invisible to myself, Sam a gaunt hawk like some other Max Ernst-birdhead-Loplop, as though to remind all people of the violation of childhood, make them look, make them look away. That tower out there past the bay (a Joyce-dish filled with foam) collapsed into the sea, and we both went running after John stuck on the train his face full of alarm waving under the bridges. I was trying to ask the right questions very carefully and slowly, see past it all, what it was really. Trying to stand alone in the dark with my omens, with my stuff. No one got a light? No one? Fucking disaster of a place. JUDGE'S COMMENTS:Third Place untitled by Steve Parker The Critical Poet
The voice in "untitled" pulled me in straightaway. I empathised with the main character and his or her struggle to survive, to be well. That authentic voice is further reinforced by the questing tone of "I was trying to ask the right questions / very carefully and slowly, / see past it all, what it was really." This poem is attempting to get to the nub of what it's like to be alive in a bleak emotional landscape in Dublin, "black things that fizzed." The lean freeform stanzas add to the desolate atmosphere conjured by the sinuous language. The gritty realism subtly shifts into surrealism through images of urban disintegration. Max Ernst's Loplop even puts in an appearance as Samuel Beckett. --Pascale PetitHONORABLE MENTIONSHonorable Mention Stone Soup by Allen M. Weber Desert Moon Review Honorable Mention Flint Michigan by Stevie Jean Reed Blueline Honorable Mention Elders: Vincent and Prudence by Adam Elgar The Writer's Block
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Feb 23 07, 09:45
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Group: Gold Member
Posts: 3,822
Joined: 3-August 03
From: Florida
Member No.: 10
Real Name: Elizabeth
Writer of: Poetry
Referred By:Lori Kanter
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Winning Poems for February 2007 Judge Pascale Petit
on an autumn evening, i by Eric Hohenstein The Critical Poet
wander the north end of harnett's farm. his man is wrestling a tractor home across the field: imperfect turnings, mechanical churn. it's as if the wheels would like to come out from under it, do their own bit of digging, as if they cared less about the world.
discover the carcass of a buck crumpled in an irrigation ditch. there are two vacancies: where its antlers were, where its eyes have turned to jelly. death has pressed a winter skin upon him: frost-whitened flanks, a draft of dead air rushing in. . .
mutter something about a body's atoms and the liver of life and god being a drunkard. trucks downshift in the distance.
know the deer's jaw is a busted hinge. still, he is saying this: salt me. stuff me into a dead sheep's gut. smoke us back into life. he does not ask me to listen. it's post-harvest and the pumpkins left behind huff out like deflating balloons; what's left but to marvel at the hunger of the world?
recall a night: a field-romp, an autumn love, a blanket tossed down. we draw together like bank tellers transacting: intimately callous.
do none of this, only dream it, wake in spring beneath a loose blanket of un-grasped straw.
shake the blood back into a sleeping hand, the death of it neither worked out nor stored-- simply there and gone, so much smoke.
imagine a fish preparing to groan itself out of some ancient shallow-- thinking lung, thinking leg-- then dropping like a plumb to measure the loss of beauty in knowing.
gather spilled seed from where it lays scattered, cracked like witches' teeth.
look into the wind, await the cold-burning; my eyelids are corn husks crushed into tinder.
watch the sun fall like a deer plowing into its eternal ditch, but only like it; it appears to bruise into red-anger, to catch on stronger fire.
smell the hope-scent which festers around slit ground-- wherever it is broken. my bones ache against the twilight; my boots don't make the sound i hear as the sod plugs and unplugs beneath them, are not saying, listen, listen.
JUDGE'S COMMENTS:
First Place on an autumn evening, i by Eric Hohenstein The Critical Poet
This poem slows me to its meditative pace. I like the way the familiar but estranging field gradually reveals its layers. I'm drawn underground through that haunting image of the buck crumpled in a ditch, and further down and back in time to the evolution of fish, into a chthonic realm where seed is "cracked like witches' teeth." The jagged stanzas are built like strata, each containing either a vivid image and/or a precise observation: the couple in a field-romp are "intimately callous." When the sun ploughs into its own ditch, that image of the deer falling gains even more weight, acquiring a mythic power. It reminds me of the Hungarian poet Ferenc Juhász's miraculous stag from folklore with the sun in its antlers. I admire this work for its depth and ambition, and the care the poet has taken to make fresh and memorable impressions of life at "the north end of harnett's farm." --Pascale Petit
Boundaryless in Bedlam by AnnMarie Eldon The Writer's Block
I discover, tripping over in the night, my skin upon the floor. It has covered me for you for many years but a little stink of lymph drew me up. There is carpet stain, I think, amidst capillaries. This the token of the affair. How subcutaneous the arousal was. Your chiffoned penis head outlined against the grasp attempts, its drool a pearl in pasty splatter. My sole encounters artery and extraneous andipose like the dreadful waking of erectile knowledge. Sweat glands worm their way up my legs to familiar haunts. There are green centipedes in a constant dreamline wending their way upstairs who would eat this mess. If waking from it were an option. We made an arrogance of lovemaking. A career. And now the basals crunching beneath a sleepwalk. I keep my blood in by uncertain denial. As if in facto esse could save me. Yet not subject to the free will of the individuals my skin has fallen off in the first attempt. My maker squeezes a corpuscule. There is a scent of sebum and lilies. The scavengers slither to a horde over boards to the rug's edge and the truth is out. This is the lore of realization. Horny and squamous I can hold together no more. I lay me down. Each pore a former glory.
JUDGE'S COMMENTS:
Second Place Boundaryless in Bedlam by AnnMarie Eldon The Writer's Block
My attention was instantly caught by the first line of this poem, which sets up the surreal conceit of a person discovering their skin by their bedside. The form itself, with its single prose-like block, looks like a cross-section through layers of skin under an electron microscope. In it we encounter sebum and corpuscules. The biological terms are embedded in the context of an erotic relationship, with all its luridly visceral manifestations. Thrown in to the mix is also the bedlam aspect of the title, allowing this poem the licence to bulge with irrational secretions. It's difficult to write this kind of overripe montage, but the poet gets away with it. --Pascale Petit
The crying girl by Jude Goodwin The Writer's Block
There's someone crying, a girl in an open window. Sunlight pulls at her hair. Behind her, shadows ignore things. The girl lifts one bare foot onto the sill, then another. She holds the window frame like a painting, carries it forward into the gallery of summer where other girls sleep on the beach, eat hard cheese and learn chords. The major sevenths sound like doorways. In her bag is a pair of bellbottoms. In her ovaries an egg named Harmony. The crying girl sits in an idling Chevy, listens to Elvis with reverb, her arms are covered with spray-on velvet, the windows are rolled up tight. She was there last night, I could hear her muffled mandolin as I locked our slider and carried the cat upstairs to bed.
JUDGE'S COMMENT:
Third Place The crying girl by Jude Goodwin The Writer's Block
At the heart of this poem is a luminous kinaesthetic image. That crying girl carrying the window forward into the "gallery of summer" lifts this poem onto another plane. It's a movement out of the poem's confines, into the open and future. Like the "egg named Harmony" in her ovaries, it's as if, at the core of the distress, there's also the possibility for transformation. This powerful image, coupled with the synaesthetic language of "the major sevenths / sound like doorways," made me go back and reread the poem many times for sheer pleasure. I enjoyed this poet's concentrated use of language and evocative image-making. --Pascale Petit
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
the demolition kid by Andrew Pike SplashHall Poetry & Art
stars dip their heads in and out of the atmosphere. the pet shop boys announce - go west... my father veers his truck between pre-dawn buses,
landing alongside a mcdonald sign on paramatta road. today, apartments grow there, but fifteen years ago bloomed a golden M, thirty feet high. i smile out my window. father, glum at the prospect of taxis and glowing pale yellow from the dashboard gauges, he turns to me and asks; son, are you hungry?
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to work, in an alley off george street. sunlight leaks down the western walls; down the rear porches of first floor lofts, smeared in peeled apricots.
first things first...
son, let's learn to tie a sheepshank. afterwards, bring down the jackhammer, the grinder and the wheelbarrow,
and try not to make so much noise; this is residential.
can you handle this?
of course.
i prove to co-workers how many bricks i can wield in a wheelbarrow, up a flexi-board mountain. sixteen was my record at age eleven...
... the boss's son. gasps all 'round.
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the rich man's restaurant; a mesh of gyprock, studs and brick.
the centrepoint tower; a black prong in an amorphic skyline. the harbour bridge; half a web over a buzzing river...
out back, the one way traffic and a white truck, etched in silver scars, leaning from the sidewalk into bitumen.
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the stench of grease from central station outflanks the aroma of coffee beans being cracked open in michel's cafe.
nevertheless, by ten a.m. i become the caffeine boy.
a notepad in hand, my writing is uncursed and primitive;
2 s m, X 5. and for henry - an egg and bakan roll.
a fifty crumples in my fist and i scamper through the metal nest.
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the red afternoon tucks itself into a corner pocket of the earth. white ball, sinking colour into the landscape as i linger outside the ettamogah.
it is one of those night jobs i conceal from mother.
Bees in Thin Hours by Nanette Rayman River The Critical Poet
The ache will find me near white flowers, yes, white and magenta in the projects
I find bees gunning down the humble Silent Ladies Tresses displaced here among
a thousand brides in water, seven thousand in cement - kneeling beside me.
We lie like an argument against the pavement, listen to the bees' decrescendo,
how they bear witness against a life soured, doors firmly closed to any light
I could turn to. How it evaporates quickly in this oven of shadows, news to broadcast
that won't be heard. Who to cry to and how to cry? The blackflies are biting
your soft under-bicep, honey, and the clouds are singing. Our vast deaf ears
lay ringing beside dead brides. These are thin hours when bees buzz in the outskirts
of lives never meant to happen-- like this. A sudden hush catches us off guard,
makes mephitic fervor of the night, without whiff of why. We curl useless legs around
poor sky. Our last magenta inhalation. There are no words.
The Rival by Laurie Byro Desert Moon Review
Long afterwards I knew she had entered my house, not as a scavenger, a buzzard or a gull, but as a wagtail. She cocked her head and studied me
as I hung blue sheets on the line. The silence and fluttering I'd loved as a child had polished her a lustrous yellow. Lot's wife could be dissolved into a night of salty stars but what to do
with her? In feverish August I willed snowflakes on my skin to ease the summer heat. I warned her to leave us for exotic Africa, chanted
your name as idle sunshine buttered her wings. I preened myself to prepare for my late migration from jealousy to song.
Voice-In-Law by C. King Blueline
I know her voice, too soft for understanding but with alarming sibilants, like rust. The worry of the decades moves her mouth and throat to make the indistinct more harrowed. I lose the nuance. And, again, I lose it.
My wife, of course, can hear the tiny vowels and doesn't mind how half the consonants are shouted while the other half are missing. She hears anxiety as kiln-fired love and slight approval as confetti rainbows.
I wonder, now, how my own mother sounds without the filter of my understanding, the singsong tones, the braced sincerity that I know as the cautious woman's care for those sewn on her tapestry of life.
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Mar 30 07, 23:57
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Group: Gold Member
Posts: 3,822
Joined: 3-August 03
From: Florida
Member No.: 10
Real Name: Elizabeth
Writer of: Poetry
Referred By:Lori Kanter
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Winning Poems for March 2007 Judge Pascale Petit The Bird Artists by Laurie Byro About Poetry ForumWhen my skin no longer fits, I carry a bag of bones to the edge of the ocean. I steal the breath from a gull. On the beach a mother bends to help a young boy bundle up a baby cormorant. I watch as they cradle it, hold a wing into the air and fling it eastward. I thought you could teach me how to fly. I made you out of sand dunes and red clay. My husband sleeps. I conjure up you, Merwin, and you, Merlin. Palm trees and ancient words, a black cauldron of seawater and fire. You spread the fan of the cormorant's wing and arrange your pigments and brushes, stroke each feather with woodland brown or green. I feel my skin begin to loosen. I pick away the lice, curl back the sclerotic welt of paint. First Place Judge's CommentaryThe Bird Artists by Laurie Byro About Poetry Forum "The Bird Artists" is poetry as spell or charm, as container and transformer. It begins and ends with a skin: "when my skin no longer fits" to "I feel my skin begin to loosen... curl back the sclerotic welt of paint." In between there's a body that I can't quite pin down: a bag of bones, a baby cormorant, a gull's breath, sand dunes and red clay, seawater and fire, pigments and brushes are gathered as ingredients for the "black cauldron" of the poem. Merwin is conjured to work magic for it, (which brings to my mind W.S. Merwin), and Merlin the wizard. By the last line human skin has become painted feathers. Every line is weighted with a surprising image or action. Even though the effect is mythic, there's a precise highly wrought feel to this poem. Not a word or space is wasted. Vulnerable, visceral and ethereal, it lingers in the imagination and draws me back to marvel at its compact power. --Pascale Petit Second Place Omen by Dave Rowley Inside the Writer's StudioThis morning an omen: the blue jay's stiffening legs receive an open sky. Sad, like a blue flame cradling a teaspoon, or the tap-tap-tapping on a tenuous vein in a break-down motel. Even the wallpaper peels away from the cloying stories that stink this room like rats who've crawled between the walls and died. Now it's summer and their ghosts thicken and swell in your throat. The sting of steel is mirror-flashed and plunging, close your eyes to hear its sinuous song. Close your humming eyes and wait, it's close and warm, like morning singing and the walls become blue-feather filled quilts as your legs fall away and up into the sky. Second Place Judge's CommentaryOmen by Dave Rowley Inside the Writer's Studio Second place goes to another fine "bird" poem, also tautly constructed and packed with organic, chiming imagery. A blue jay's legs embracing the sky metamorphose into blue flames around a teaspoon, then into a room with blue-feather quilted walls. The images vibrate against each other; the language is trance-like, allowing the blue images to burgeon and transmute in semi-abstract motion. Synaesthetic phrases such as "their ghosts / thicken and swell in your throat," "close your humming eyes" and "it's close and warm, like morning singing" have a hypnotic effect, lulling the reader over the transitions and merging the triple image of blue jay/ blue flame/ quilt walls seamlessly. --Pascale Petit Third Place Show but Never Tell by Brenda Levy Tate Pen ShellsIn the Guller house, terrible things were done to all the children. I once lived around the corner, down a mud road where the youngest son sometimes walked. His name was Charlie and I knew something had to be wrong with his brain. Nice ponies, he'd tell me, staring past the edge of his own boyhood. Ay-uh, them's real nice. He'd grin so wide I could count every one of his tumbledown grey teeth. He was eleven then, and growing. In the Guller house, brothers, cousins and uncles didn't wait for the girls to get their periods. None of them stayed virgins much past five or six. Except for the cripple, who had stumps for legs and arms. They used to park her on the step just to get some sun, like a plant kept too long in shadows. Neighbors said she didn't mind, she was a vegetable. I had no opinion on that. In the Guller house, they ate cow-corn stolen from a field across the highway. The farmer hooted and slapped his knee, because they were filching his cattle-food and he figured it was funny. I never saw any garden in their scraped-raw yard. Battered cars buried the lawn, and junk trucks made fences. But the social services and public health station wagons shone in the dust. So did the small daughters. In the Guller house, a nurse hesitated at the threshold with her medicine kit, while Charlie's father was breeding one of his nieces on the kitchen floor. Hold on; I ain't done yet! he grunted, and finished. The nurse told everybody, but this was the 1970s. Incest was just a family affair, except for the babies. Every once in awhile, they got taken away. Charlie became a man--with two kids by his sister-- before a Guller finally screamed, loud enough to disturb the sweet community. She was thirteen. They tried to shut her up. By then I'd moved to another county. In the Guller house, two hundred years lie black as a dirty stove. The rape- room is gone: part of a chicken coop. I suppose the cripple died; Charlie and his kin should still be in prison, although probably they're not. The laughing farmer's dead, too. Lost children drift in the convenient dark, names without faces, because it's easier for the rest of us. Good people still drive past the ruin, shop and work and age. Harsh January air cuts across the South Mountain and sandblasts an empty driveway--the same wind that abrades me now. But I've never been hard-blown open, a broken door, a Guller child. Third Place Judge's Commentary Show but Never Tell by Brenda Levy Tate Pen Shells This is more than a narrative poem telling us a shocking family tale. It's hard to write convincingly about child abuse especially from an outsider's perspective, but the narrator's tone here is just right, a tactful observer who ends by describing him or herself through images, as someone who's "never / been hard-blown open, a broken door." It's this ending that enriches the poem, so that the final draught blows back up through the whole story like the wind in Munch's The Scream. The language is low-key and evenly paced in its steady recounting of the horrors of the Guller house. Simple, stark statements such as "two hundred years / lie black as a dirty stove" and "battered /cars buried the lawn" paint a vivid picture of the place. What shocks is the calm way we're shown how commonplace the sexual abuse was, so much so that visiting nurses would stumble upon it as they went about their work. The narrator is abraded by the sandblasting wind of memory and what has been witnessed but does not over-dramatise the facts. --Pascale Petit Honorable Mentions Caisa Thorbjornsdotter by Jana Bouma Wild Poetry Forum I've known the small red farmhouse, the dear blue curtains and the white china, the husband behind the oxen on the rocky hillside, the patch of oats beside the tall pines. I've known the forest alive with skogsra and wight, trolls and huldre-folk, the hymns in the small church. I've known the wash day and the birthing day, the son gone off to the city, the iron crosses, each with its name, beside the small mounds. I've known the long journey, sick with fever, the crowded passage, the strange new city, the setting out by lake and river and wagon, arriving at this place that stretches on forever, a land of nothing, no tomte or myling to murmur in the night, no neighbor, no fencepost. This land did not turn easy to the plow, but I planted myself here among the tall grasses. The grasses' deep roots, they welcomed me. *skogsra, wight, trolls, huldre-folk, tomte, myling: creatures in Scandinavian folklore Thorbjornsdotter: daughter of Thorbjorn Venetian Notes by Adam Elgar Inside the Writer's Studio Cannaregio It's this way in, an umbilicus through a living monument to everything that long ago mislaid its century, and stands now on the sufferance of time, a backdrop to the boat's raucous trance, its grunt and shudder as it strikes the Campo wall, our shock in finding that the tunnelled waterways and pox-peeled facades are not illusions after all. This is the unmoving dance of brick and stone on ether. Santa Croce This is the capital of claustrophobia where liquid alleyways drown light in pungent green, steep furtive passages conspire along their dark cammin, and slip us through the city's corseted heart. One humpy bridge will take us only to the next, our dread and fascination mounting till the pesceria like a sudden tide grants us the gift of openness, the sea in boxes on an ice-slicked floor, fish gilded, rosy, silver, veined with blue, beside a flaunt of sucking discs in stars and jointed creatures trying not to die. Our hearts' tides make no sense of this. Dorsoduro Our eyes stream at the dazzle on the Zattere. Here the world's light tightens to a smack, there's no escape from blue except returning through the narrow calli where the shadows sulk in loyalty to winter. This taut geometry discharges us at last to lunch in kinder light subdued by stone. The weary curve of Campo Santa Margherita drinks, as we do our Friuli, the declining sun. The Box Which is Myth by S. Jason Fraley Inside the Writer's Studio For each brother, the box contains Agamemnon's skull, a collection of precious stones, and Dad's old Playboys, respectively. All their stories: how each made love for the first time while it was in the room, how it survived as their parent's house burned. The slight indention where a thief's head landed when clubbed with a trophy. Not a mildew stain. No, a glow. * * * They arrive at Dad's birthday party. In the corner--the box covered with a decorative table cloth. Someone puts a red plastic cup on it. When the two oldest brothers go outside to bring in extra bags of ice, the youngest takes the box, sneaks into the laundry room. He slices it open with his pocket knife. An explosion of flannel shirts. * * * The box is meticulously taped. The lead detective stretches latex gloves over his hands, drops the knife into a plastic bag. Fingerprint dust floats. Handcuffed to chairs, the brothers share stories. One insists he stole the box from behind the museum when a Greek exhibit traveled through town. The other says that when it is time to retire, he will live as he has always dreamed. Takes your breath by Kathleen Vibbert Pen Shells We settle in close like apples in a round bowl, while the moon brushes off bits of light as awkward; you remove the white shirt with button down collar. And in between split spheres, the hairs on your neck become soft-wheat. You find your way through my breasts. Hands separate dusks from the corners of our mouths- some colors enter and never leave - - the world knows how to cool and warm, which scars never sleep and which voices say yes. The world knows when and how to dress a peach-- and how the thistle slowly takes away your breath.
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Apr 29 07, 09:54
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Mosaic Master
Group: Administrator
Posts: 18,892
Joined: 1-August 03
From: Massachusetts
Member No.: 2
Real Name: Lori Kanter
Writer of: Poetry & Prose
Referred By:Imhotep
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Winning Poems for April 2007 Judge Bryan Appleyard Winterset by Bernard Henrie The Writer's BlockYour dwarf Tangelo is frostbitten, rigor brittles the pulp; a re-planted Nagami kumquat lumbers in a terracotta pot. Myrtle shrivels beyond the porch and the birdbath is still iced; Spring empty handed and brown. I pull on heavy gloves and clear debris; Later, we begin a card game, we discuss a travel book but break off and then stop. Someone telephones. The aimless evening falls on the house and like widow weave folds along the chair stopping at the lamp. When did I cross an invisible line and never find my way back? A palsied old man tapping the steep stair. First Place Judge's CommentaryWinterset by Bernard Henrie The Writer's Block "The first stanza is a showstopper. The first two lines signal at once that this writer feels poetry. I'm not sure about the one line short fourth stanza--though I can see why it is lopped. This poem does much with little." --Bryan Appleyard Second Place Mary Lincoln Communes with the Dead by Ellen Kombiyil BlueLineIs that you, Willie? You sound muffled, like you're tangled in the bedclothes. You must come closer and whisper. Father tells me I've already wept too much; if he catches us he'll send me to the asylum. But tell me, how should I mourn you? I still glimpse you in the sun's glint on the brass knocker. The oak tree creaks in wind--your boots on the porch floor, coming in from the river, home for supper. It's not you, only the whisper of you, like the quietness of books. I envy your Father the preoccupation of work. I know you visit him. He calls them "dreams" when you sit beside him on the train clasp his hand in the theatre. I've kept the flowers from your coffin pressed in our Bible. Come here, closer to the light, let me see once more your sweet face. I won't ask to hold you, I know I can't, won't ask you what it's like, can't bear the immensity. My grief, will it be eternal? You smile. I know you can't stay. Look at you! Exactly as I remember, your face like a saint. Tomorrow I'll light dusk's candle again, William, William. Second Place Judge's CommentaryMary Lincoln Communes with the Dead by Ellen Kombiyil BlueLine "This a triumph of tone and rhythm that easily survives multiple readings. The poem sustains the drama of its opening question well, shifting confidently between narrative and detail. It is a touch more perfect than "Winterset," but came second only because it didn't have the same poetic originality." --Bryan Appleyard Third Place Bird Caller by Daniel Barlow The MaelstromBy twenty-eight I'd moved to Idaho from Auckland, got the girl, the job, the car. My Mum came once, but said it was too far and never made the trip again. I know she would have loved the way the sycamore transforms the yard and those on either side with autumn drifts. When Luke was born I cried to know she wouldn't be there any more. Yet sometimes, through the kitchen window, dawn bears rising sounds that call the winter brave. I hear the furtive trilling of the birds and catch the gentle timbre of her words, her tutelage that lives beyond the grave, reminding me to go and rake the lawn. Third Place Judge's Commentary Bird Caller by Daniel Barlow The Maelstrom "This poet set himself a difficult task--writing a strict sonnet in a relaxed, conversational style. He pulls it off by sneaking a strong but easy rhythm into the lines. The poem doesn't fall from its own fiction into excessive directness, a common crime with naive sonnet attempts. It is, simply, very complete and lovely. --Bryan Appleyard Honorable Mentions Blas Rivas by Sally Arango Renata South Carolina Writer's Workshop Blas Rivas wanted to die on Socialist soil. I heard him say it twice, once on a bus to Cienfuegos and again days later as he lay dying from a blood clot exploding in his brain. I say nothing. It is a quiet pronouncement, an inward ken requiring not even a delayed response. Humidity veils the window, blurring shades of red, blue, hues of skin with the green of sugar cane. Workers turn to wave and smile, an interlude necesario, the essence of custom and fecundity in Cuba the island that rests like a smiling dragon just beyond the chalice of Miami. Judge Bryan Appleyard’s comments: “A really excellent piece of writing that leads you into a mysterious drama of the imagination. But, somehow, it didn’t quite do enough for me. I don’t doubt, however, that this is a poet.”Drought by Jan Iwaszkiewicz Mosaic Musings CONGRATS! I We sink the corner posts first, as each defines a neighbour. It is here where the bottom six inches are the most important. It is here where the strength is muscled into the fence. The heart of a fence lies in its foot. I tamp until the bar sings of possession, the bar bounces and writhes. We snug the stays and tighten the wire, each barbed note is tensioned into voice the division sings a warning. II The fence cannot hold back the drought. The sky aches blue and the sun eats green; the earth coughs dust as rich as blood. My bones hunker down beside the rock. Eagles hang; wings wound into the wire, heads nailed down by the sun. Ribs rack a heaving fleece. I watch my image fade from the eye of a lamb. Judge Bryan Appleyard’s comments: “Could have been a winner easily; it displays a really passionate sense of detail and sinewy effort. I think, however, this poet needs to develop a little more.”For PMD by Mitchell Geller Desert Moon Review Normally this week I'd gather together the ingredients for your special birthday cake: a rather grandiose Victoria Sandwich. Two layers of orange Genoise filled with lemon curd and frosted with an orange buttercream, and decorated with candied orange peel from Provence. One year I made the lemon curd from scratch, using, you said, every goddamn pan in the house, and please, for Christ's sake next year buy a jar! My gift to you would usually be something blue: that aquamarine stickpin I designed when you turned 47, your birthstone's limpid beryl beauty so much like your eyes, or that Lorenzini shirt, the shade of a Tuscan sky, with every buttonhole stitched in a different whimsical colour. You adored that shirt, and wore it constantly, the pumice of your two o'clock shadow abrading its collar to shreds. Some years a book -- "The King Of Instruments" still sits on the glass coffee table; or a recherche CD, or a Novello edition of a Bach transcription. Last year I was stupefied with gin and stayed in bed the whole day, occasionally listlessly getting up and picking out the anthem from the 4th Saint-Saens concerto with one finger on the dusty Steinway grand, with truly voluptuous masochism, crying until the skin around my eyes was raw. This year, as sober as the mohel at a bris, (and quite liking the way it feels) I will go to hear a poet read at Harvard Books, and eat a caesar salad. I've nearly lost a stone of what I'd gained -- for a while there some of your things fit me, and I felt like you. It wouldn't have surprised me, if, shaving one day, I found that my eyes were blue, and my nose smaller and elegantly perfect, and that my chin had developed a deep round cleft, sexy, but quite hard to shave. Oh my love please be assured that I would most certainly still need you, and deem it an honour supreme to feed you, had you awakened this March 22nd, and turned 64. Judge Bryan Appleyard’s comments: “I really wanted this to win as I love the way it kind of sneaks its way into poetry. At first you think the lines could be prose, but, on second reading, their gentle, insistent rhythm asserts itself. It was going fine until the line ‘with truly voluptuous masochism’ which is self-consciously ‘poetic’ in the way the rest of the poem is not. And then the ending simply doesn’t work.”Masked Artwork by Elizabeth DiBenedetto Mosaic Musings CONGRATS! With artist's palette, brush and hues in hand she decorates the drabness of the day - thin dabs of sanguine on an ashen land, soft strokes conceal what she will not betray. The doctors canvassed charts, discussing test results; a darkish blot had showed when scanned, a teardrop shape - and still she paints her best with artist palette, brush and hues in hand. She hides discolorations of her life by touching up the downs, a bit of spray, then casting shadows with a shaping knife. She decorates the drabness of the day to filter out the fading tints of sin in youthful days. A woman in command, when strength and courage were immersed within- thin dabs of sanguine on an ashen land. Her gallery is now a storage shed of artwork which will never be displayed - each dappled bloom now lives among the dead; soft strokes conceal what she will not betray. Judge Bryan Appleyard’s comments: “Brilliant use of a tricky form and very refined, silvery language. It doesn’t quite carry me through and there are occasional lapses – ‘A woman in command’ and ‘filter out’ feel wrong. But very fine writing.”
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"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~ J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the RingsCollaboration feeds innovation. In the spirit of workshopping, please revisit those threads you've critiqued to see if the author has incorporated your ideas, or requests further feedback from you. In addition, reciprocate with those who've responded to you in kind. "I believe it is the act of remembrance, long after our bones have turned to dust, to be the true essence of an afterlife." ~ Lorraine M. KanterNominate a poem for the InterBoard Poetry Competition by taking into careful consideration those poems you feel would best represent Mosaic Musings. For details, click into the IBPC nomination forum. Did that poem just captivate you? Nominate it for the Faery award today! If perfection of form allured your muse, propose the Crown Jewels award. For more information, click here! "Worry looks around, Sorry looks back, Faith looks up." ~ Early detection can save your life.MM Award Winner
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Jun 3 07, 17:53
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Group: Gold Member
Posts: 3,822
Joined: 3-August 03
From: Florida
Member No.: 10
Real Name: Elizabeth
Writer of: Poetry
Referred By:Lori Kanter
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Winning Poems for May 2007 Judge Bryan Appleyard
FIRST PLACE:
Refugee sproutings across the Continental by Mike Keo MiPo
Brother,
let us find refuge in unabashed love;
the crescent blade tucked against your waist held like an organ for self flight;
my sac of collected mango pits I planted for redemption but never sprout fruits in this land of many winters;
let us pawn them all in for;
tears and honey, hummingbirds and misfortune, naga and lock gates,
so we may one day burrow our hands so deep into a furious hive of dashes and discomfort
that we are fortunate enough to understand what hold
the spirit is not war and calls to home,
but a monsoon of poetry & weeps that fastens the mouth
sweet like a Mekong vernacular sticky with the weight of America's
orange blossom.
First Place - Commentary Refugee sproutings across the Continental by Mike Keo MiPok"A poem with genuine originality that seems at ease with itself - it is not straining for expression. The rhythm insinuates itself into your mind and the imagery is cleverly restrained." --Bryan Appleyard
SECOND PLACE:
The Sandwich Hour by Yoly Calderon New Cafe
Eyes draw a horizon on mine. There's a hint of sweet tobacco
breaking away from his aftershave,
scurrying down the nook of my nose.
"Mind if I join you?"
Do I mind?
I do and don't.
But how do I explain with one
hour for bellies to restock?
"Let's go."
We head out of the office
onto a sunlit runner.
All the while we're touching
on summer camp for the kids
and European cruises versus
cleaning gutters on vacation.
There's an unoccupied table
under the pink crown of a redbud
tree. We sit. I cross my legs.
Topics are sustained with mid
drone voices: the dream of being
invisible; how he almost became
a vegan; why people marry,
(I uncross my legs) and divorce.
It is moments away until
the hour- One round hour,
like a corkscrew begins to top the wine.
I finish my soft drink- let ice chips
skate down my throat. We get up
to leave when he reaches over to me,
but pulls back as if I'm a stove
whose burners are turned to high.
"You have an eyelash on your cheek."
Fig. There's fig in his aftershave.
Second Place Commentary
The Sandwich Hour by Yoly Calderon New Cafe"A very simple idea very well executed. This is a narrative poem, a story turned into verse with the lightest of touches, a delicacy that reflects the tentative anxieties of the encounter." --Bryan Appleyard THIRD PLACE:
In a City Made of Seaweed by Dave Rowley Desert Moon Review
Double Sonnenizio on Two Lines by Ilya Kaminsky*
In a city made of seaweed we danced on a rooftop, my hands were slippery dancers, your body a love-flung shorebreak
arched at the hips. Now a city of sand slips beneath us too, castle rooftops battered by the tide's foamy tentacles: such trembly aggressors,
such lurchers of reclamation. We scrawl our story in lines of seaweed cursive. One lover is a dollop of oyster, the other
a mother-of-pearl cradle, we cling tight as the dance-floor shifts. Such stubbornness flings us through a city of kelp; it's complicated
among the olive pods. Stubborn love is like a leatherjacket, that tough city swaggerer, or a porcupine fish filled with air--you suck up what the ocean hands
you, whether krill, or squid's black ink. The seabed is a rooftop, our story made for flight: streaming from our gills in stubborn recklessness
these words of love are little bubbles, dancing, rising on a dare. Such is the story made of stubbornness and a little air.
*First and last lines are by Ilya Kaminsky.
Third Place Commentary In a City Made of Seaweed by Dave Rowley Desert Moon Review"Luscious and dense language used to entangle imagery and associations. The poem creates a dazed hallucinated atmosphere." --Bryan Appleyard
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
It by Carla Conley The Critical Poet"Life begins unless you interrupt it," the old man said and what, inside a womb, is any kind of isn't? There's no room for nothingness, not anything on earth is nothing: only tiny, timid, not ready yet, but moving. Whether want attends it, still it is: it makes no matter until the metal sharpens, comes to scatter... then, the remnants leave because there is no room for lifelessness inside a mother's womb. It wasn't: I was disposed to disagree but then it was, though maybe it would be a cunning seahorse? Next time that we met, it had gained a head and stunted limbs and yet it maybe wasn't - somehow, I supposed I'd love it if it were. They found its nose and something pulsing: heart. I started looking for missing parts, each little finger crooking; each foot unfurling. What a dreadful eye - like a raisin, baked - are we sure that it's alive? It tested waters just as I would do, pushing boundaries - now it was a "you" to whom I crooned as it paddled around the place: here be monsters. Soon there was a face - Are we sure that it's alive? When did desire, all by itself, create? When did despair, all by itself, destroy? I tell you never: life/death, plus or minus, the endeavor needs a being. We are sure it is alive but life is a pinpoint, not sure to survive. and soon there was a need to hurry out of the straitened quarters. Both of us grew stout. This small world couldn't hold him, mama's girth stretched tight, horizons cracking. This is birth: what starts as frail as smoke attains a crown - his head, his little body cloaked in down - triumphant as a king. His little hand finds my fingers finally. I finally understand. Honorable Mention It by Carla Conley The Critical Poet"A dramatic meditation in being, this holds the reader with a serious of gentle surprises." --Bryan Appleyard
First Date by Sally Arango Renata South Carolina Writer's WorkshopAs I turn towards the lake I feel his glacial blue eyes sizing me up from behind. It's not hubris, it's a knowing, an itch at the back of my brain. He's not my type. So why the flounce, the undulation? My hips feel the freedom to be rounder, my legs longer. I stride aware of how the peach on my toes contrast with cerulean sandals. My body is talking to me and to him, in a swill of invisible words that will never be mentioned unless he is the one to make the first move. Honorable Mention First Date by Sally Arango Renata South Carolina Writer's Workshop
"Like The Sandwich Hour, a narrative poem of great delicacy and precision." --Bryan Appleyard Jaycee Beach by Millard R Howington South Carolina Writer's WorkshopIf I didn't jog north to the Dania Beach pier then I'd thread the sand dunes south to Jaycee Beach. The dune grass whipped at my legs as I pushed myself in sprints through the loose sand, then a veer over to the wetter stuff near the gentle surf and those clouds rising up like mighty white towers guarding the ocean, and tinged pink for the sunrise. I went for the coffee from an ancient canteen truck parked there under the swaying palms, and the lovely blonde lady who leaned well over to serve. Honorable Mention Jaycee Beach by Millard R. Howington South Carolina Writer's Workshop
"A moment captured with something of the insouciance of Frank O'Hara." --Bryan Appleyard
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Jul 4 07, 00:35
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Group: Gold Member
Posts: 3,822
Joined: 3-August 03
From: Florida
Member No.: 10
Real Name: Elizabeth
Writer of: Poetry
Referred By:Lori Kanter
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Winning Poems for June 2007 Judge Bryan Appleyard Bad Weatherby Dale McLain Wild Poetry ForumYou can grow accustomed to storms. Every night they shake our sheetrock, set the bricks trembling. Mortar remembers it is only sand. Our jaunty roof begs to be doffed. And I huddle within my frame with dread and an awful wish that the past proves its redundancies, that miles away the twister will drop- not here, not now when I have just remembered my own name. When the windows bow like Galileo's glass I begin to pray to deities yet unnamed, beseech the clever stars that hide behind the churning ceiling. I confess that peace is not my plea. Instead I ask for more colors and a measure of strength to face the wind. The red oak fusses at my window, whines and scratches to come in. But it holds, this vine-covered house, stands on its wide flat bottom, a prairie boat anchored fast in hard white clay and history. Within I slip off my shoes. Tonight is not the night that I will walk on broken glass and wear the unmistakable face of disbelief. The thunder's growl begins to lose step with the lightning. In the attic rafters sigh and creak like scrawny old men. I lay my head on the last damp cloud where dreams of whirlwinds and flying shingles wait. I sleep like a town wiped off the map. First PlaceBad Weather by Dale McLain Wild Poetry Forum"A simple idea very well executed. Weather is a perennial subject for poetry. Here it is evoked almost as a conversation - both with the poet and with his house. The house 'remembers' and 'begs' while the poet is driven to introspection and prayer by the storm. Rhymically controlled and very firm in its imagery, this is a satisfying poem." --Bryan Appleyard The Daughter of Antiochusby Adam Elgar Writer's BlockI am no viper, yet I feed on mother's flesh that did me breed. (Pericles, Prince of Tyre I i 65-6) No point dividing day from night since both are empty. I decline on sofas and chaises-- longues, hollow with age and boredom like a skin shedding its snake. These days I'm harmless, and my memory crusts over like my sight. But he's still sharp, his nose too long, his accent crude, his stink of the sea. The only one I really wanted. He saw me as I was, as Daddy made me, as Daddy had been making me for years. I heard someone name 'Tyre' the other day. There were drums and fanfares, so I wondered, was it him? Had he escaped my father's rage and come in his nineties to visit me and gloat with some ex-beauty tottering on his arm? I must have wished it. A relief from other thoughts. Even to the most, let's say, adoring fathers daughters lose their glow, and since I had a sister Daddy farmed me out once she had reached the age he liked. Some 'farm' -- this dusty nowhere, a decrepit king who couldn't till my bed. Which satisfied Daddy. What was my fertility to him? The story goes that I was burned up too when fire bombed from the sky to punish him. The woman sitting by his side, like him reduced to charcoal, was my sister. Daddy taught me flesh is foul. Correction. Showed. Correction. All the space there might have been in me for love, hunger, or tenderness was filled with him. Poisons are subtle here, blades fine, plagues frequent. I forget which nephew's nephew grabbed the throne last time the music stopped. Second PlaceThe Daughter of Antiochus by Adam Elgar Writer's Block"This is a dramatic monologue, a difficult form that requires restraint - otherwise the tone of voice and the character collapses. Here the tone of well preserved and we get a real sense of the woman's bitterness and disappointment. There are several wonderful effects - 'like a skin/shedding its snake' and I lie the 'ex-beauty tottering on his arm'." --Bryan Appleyard Jackie by Kathy Earsman Mosaic MusingsThat little fellow, Jack, can hardly wait to walk with us to school; he'll soon be five. Each day he waits alone, "See ya!" he says and waves, he lifts his brows and tilts his head in Polynesian style. He's just so sweet! Jackie little Jackie-down-the-street. The men are in the river side by side, their bodies bright with sparkles as they wade a long slow march, the ripples dance and shine, and no-one speaks... I watch the shadows grow until they reach like fingers that would hide down inside the river by the pipe. There's an awful cry, the postman stoops and snatches, boiling up the water where a child comes swinging out in fountain gouts that stream in rivers down his little arms spread out like Jesus' arms upon the cross. Jackie, little Jackie-down-the-street. Then suddenly the air is full of sound; the women on the bridge let out a wail that's crying on and on and I can see the shape of it go spreading like a stain, I see it beating like a wounded gull flying up the river past the pipe. Now Jackie's on the claypan by the bank, his father sucks his mouth and spits a flood. We stand and watch him press on Jackie's chest and darkness grows around, we breathe the cold, but Jackie doesn't breathe, he doesn't move. Jackie little Jackie-down-the-street. Doc Tommo's car spins arcing in a skid; he runs and kneels, he fingers Jackie's throat and looks into his eyes. "It's way too late," the Doctor says, "Give up, it's over Sid, give up I said ! He's dead! He's bloody dead!" Jackie little Jackie-down-the-street. His father picks him up in his big arms and holds him close against him wordlessly. We watch him trudging slowly up the hill and Jackie's mother follows heavily, and everything is still now as I sit down above the river on the pipe where Jackie fell and hit his head. He sank. But no-one said a thing. They ran away because they got a fright. Oh how I wish we never took him with us after school to fish, and play the way he did today half across the river on the pipe.
Third Place Jackie by Kathy Earsman Mosaic Musings"Normally I'm allergic to this kind of crisis/reportage poetry, but I know this is my failing. In this case, the narrative is well handled and the tension and horror build inexorably. The danger with this kind of subject matter is that it can turn into just a kind of scream. Much more effective is to contain the feeling within the structure of the poem, exactly what the poet achieves here." --Bryan Appleyard ~Honorable Mentions~
Rhythmically Inapposite by Michael McRandall Pen ShellsLana rides a pony in the cellar unmindful of the children who dance circles at the door -- she wonders if the apathy is terminal, or merely, chronic, but decides it doesn't matter since the colors fade regardless of the song. Neighbors stand in line to borrow vapors which serve to cover shadows that have melted on the floor -- plant roses in her window-box and water them with undiluted inference, Then watch through shuttered windows as she finger-paints a mourning on the sky. Lana makes an early trip to vacant -- where every mother Mary emulates their father's whore -- and withers at the elementary portrait that is drowning in the rearview, as crack-pipes play a reverential etude to a fractured morning buzz. Rapunzel at 49 Learns to Dance the Tarantella by Laurie Byro Desert Moon ReviewBecause she was awkward, the opposite of a spun-sugar baby, a black widow in his glittering web, because she never understood about Dylan and Baez and how she stood out like the purple eye in the delicacy of his Queen Anne's Lace chords, he the pearl shell, the mother of the luminous lake pearl and because she thought his book was Tarantella, never ever understood- pushed up against it like a train heading into snowy Hibbing with those Russian wolves howling outside her window and she breathing the blast of coal smoke and exhaling strings of sweet gas, the floss of cotton candy, she rubs against his arm like a spotting cat, noticing the dark whorls of hair, the eight-legged slip into tyranny. Her taut, tight controlled body just the way he likes it, zippered inside itself, a dance towards his white light, a six pointed star, not cocaine white or holy but because he was the teacher and she the pupil and because she slips inside his skin, minds the illumination of his ghost preacher in and out and in and out and through his incarnations and because her skin has begun to peel, to shed off into a pile of sawdust he blows her onto the floor where she becomes the grit under all the fancy soles. 56 and Sunny by Mitchell Geller About Poetry ForumI concentrated far too much on death, and somehow missed the violet and the crocus, and sharp green shoots that sucked the sun like breath. I concentrated far too much on death; ignored the rose, or some such shibboleth -- let pure, prismatic joy escape my focus. I concentrated far too much on death, and somehow missed the violet and the crocus. Songs from Stephen King's Knapsack III: Insomnia by Gary Blankenship Blue LineTrees don't sleep, although some sit up in bed and pretend. They might even nod off for a cat-nap, but you never catch them in the depths of REM sleep where dreams come from. Some undress preferring to spend the long night nude, nothing between them and the damp fog but some ragged shreds of moss and lichen. Others stay clothed as they watch the moon change from sickle to an old man eye winking. Come day, they yawn and nests fall from great heights.
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Aug 5 07, 09:40
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Group: Gold Member
Posts: 3,822
Joined: 3-August 03
From: Florida
Member No.: 10
Real Name: Elizabeth
Writer of: Poetry
Referred By:Lori Kanter
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Winning Poems for July 2007 Judge Maurya Simon First Place His Jacket by Witt Wittman SplashHallEarly mornings when the whippoorwills have hushed their racket, you stoop in the garden, pulling weeds, always in your tan jacket, checkerboarded with cigarette burns, the pockets slick with grime from years of nesting collected eggs, the frayed knitted cuffs hang like dried tassels on ready corn. I was afraid if I washed it, it would fall into shreds and disappear down the drain, to find a home with all your lost dress socks, (no matter; you never wore anything but boot socks anyway). Arms loaded with squash and knotty tomatoes, pockets filled with chicken eggs-- never eggplant, you tossed that jacket on the same ear of the same kitchen chair for so many years that it is worn down and shorter than the others. I should throw the nasty thing away, but your ruggedness still clings. I need to wrap myself in it like a photographer under the black drape, perhaps to capture you one more spring, stooping in your garden. This poem enacts, with deft economy of language and emotional restraint, a morning gardening ritual that becomes an elegiac homage to someone beloved. The description of "his jacket" is tinged with humor and pathos, and it vividly provides insights into the man's character and habits. The last stanza's turn is both surprising and satisfying: the speaker wrestles with an urge to "throw the nasty thing away," but the man's "ruggedness still clings" to the jacket, causing the speaker to want to be "like a photographer," wrapped in "the black drape,/ perhaps to capture you/ one more spring"-- Brilliantly and subtly, the poet enters the void and freezes time, for a bittersweet moment, to savor again the beloved's imagined presence. --Maurya SimonSecond PlaceThe Man Next Door According to His Pockets by Adam Elgar Writer's BlockHe's losing faith in us. We feel him check and re- check that we have his keys and wallet, and the talismanic letter from his daughter, wherever she may be. He slouches down the same streets to the same work, mistrust a whisper that aspires to clamour. Which of us is guilty of the hole that everything slips through? Some conjuror has swapped his life for one where wives' eyes redden and accuse, obsessed sons slur and darken, daughters abandon him for intolerable lovers. Our forebears knew his children when they were little more than half our height, those soft fists reaching up to tug out treasures, his reward to let his pockets haemorrhage for those he loved. What a delightful and unlikely dramatic persona this poem creates: its speaker is a man's trouser's pockets, and they are steady witnesses to the familial and personal trials of the "man next door" (an Everyman). The poem's first line--"He's losing faith in us"-- provides its dominant theme of loss, which the poet skillfully develops and enlarges as the poem proceeds. The man has alienated his wives, and lost his "daughters [who] abandon him/ for intolerable lovers," while his sons "slur and darken," suggesting an emotional distancing between them, as well. The poem's ending poignantly evokes an earlier time when the man's children reached up with "soft fists...to tug out treasures" from his pockets--and its final lines ("his reward to let his pockets/ haemorrhage for those he loved") suggest his former pleasure in freely giving his love to them, even as these lines hint back to and underscore his present desolation. --Maurya SimonThird PlaceDuring an Epileptic Fit, Ida Saxton McKinley has a Premonition of her Husband's Assassination
by Ellen Kombiyil BluelineJust now I have seen it, fluttering, William's handkerchief, sailing towards my face to conceal my expression -- (Oh, I know what I must look like, my rolling eyes, my spit) -- But it couldn't have been -- William has gone to the Exhibition. The white handkerchief wasn't his at all; it was rimmed with blue lilies. Goodbye, it said, a ghost hand waving from the bow of a ship. That sound! A horn-blast, a shot from a gun, an air-organ's fanfare: Bach's concerto had begun. The moment was eternal, the handkerchief falling, falling, never landing, on fire and floating as it fell, the flap of doves. Be quick! Send word -- he has gone to the Reception. I fear the President has set sail for the far shore and we shall find him already fallen. This dramatic monologue assumes the voice of Ida McKinley, wife to our 25th President, William McKinley, as she experiences a moment of deja vu, precipitated by an epileptic seizure. Ida's premonition of her husband's assassination is compelling and persuasive because the poet reveals the character's altered consciousness as it amplifies the sensual events Ida's experiencing: a hallucination of a "white handkerchief" saying " Goodbye," heightened aural effects ("A horn-blast, a shot from a gun,/ an air-organ's fanfare"), and the sense that time is slowing to eternalize this horrifying moment. The handkerchief is emblematic of McKinley's death and spiritual deliverance: "the cloth on fire and floating as it fell/ like the flap of doves," and the poem fittingly ends with a denouement that returns Ida to normal consciousness and a call to action, though she knows that "we shall find him already fallen. --Maurya SimonHonorable MentionsInsatiable by Laurel K Dodge MiPoThe mackerel are as charred and flat as the tomatoes are red and round. There is magic in random numbers, a message in the three dead fish and the five fruit, ripe and grotesque. A trinity of skeletons, and an uneven yield, a harvest that keeps everything off balance. The green tomato waiting on the sill will not make a whole. Even if you put a hand clear through, you would not believe you'd seen the holy ghost. Fork and knife suspended above the heaping plateful of food; your belly growls, but you cannot move. Later, you'll remember how the eyes stared at you like god. How, in the distance, the apocalypse burned. This is how Lot's wife felt just before she turned around. Soles too blistered, too tired to move the body forward. And a hunger despite the plenty; an empty stomach, a bereft vessel. A hole that could not be filled. Cherry Grove by Elodie Ackerman The Writer's CircleAll around the old place, the dead visit. The day he opened up the trunk of that sweetgum tree, and before we saw the horseshoe hanging inside, something brushed against my face. I heard a nickering far away, and the smell of oiled leather and candlewax. A few days later Lloyd found an anvil half inside an oak tree, back by the old barn. It was ten feet off the ground, and the color of storm clouds when the air smells like metal and electricity breaks it right in two. They say a shipwright lived there once. I know. I've heard him hammering. That was before the rumor of the slave revolt across the road. Nineteen men killed, tortured, all for the sake of a child's tale. A child named Obey. No excuses. The crape myrtle we cleared from the back forty bled claret- colored sap, and stuck inside one old, stubborn knot was a skeleton key. The silver lying all around, tarnished forks and bone- china plates. Daddy said she burned that house a'purpose, took the tram to the train and left town. Nobody Ever saw her again. But to be frank, I don't believe it. I saw her walking in the fog one morning, early. Picking bones, rearranging bricks, breaking twigs over and over. She saw me too. We've been talking back and forth, she and I, between the branches. Haul by Brandon The MaelstromThe last brown box and bulging plastic bag's been thrown inside the truck. A vacuum screams through empty rooms while morning dawns and drags. The past is bundled up, we'll follow dreams of wealth and newness in another town, a neighborhood with winding streets, shade trees and parks. Escape's the road we're driving down, scrambling to find those blasted keys and turn the locks. Before the front door shuts for good, a glance around the house reveals familiar ways and that our lives had ruts: the dingy pathways on the carpet show high-traffic routes, that we just spin our wheels, because we're there no matter where we go. Sparrow by Bernard Henrie Writer's Block6:30. The radio just lighting up. November in corridors, faint yellow bulbs turning on. Men take down their trousers, lazy at last; butter placed on the table, fresh meat cut on heavy bread, almost eaten. Utensils burnt underneath with electric heat, men beside dishes in the sink, women released from shops asleep on davenports, a soiled potato in a pail; once vivid folds of hair pinned back. There are men who look out between the blinds and darken as the light falls dark, grow still in rooms that grow quieter still. Not morning time, not afternoon, time written down but not addressed, thin painted palm trees on fields of long faded green, a souvenir cup holding a tooth brush, a cloth your scent; lumps of hydrogen stars, clouds of meteor gas and fumes of futile ascent. I have held a mask across my face, stayed alone longer than I should want, become fossil bone and broken shell. Almost partners with the migratory birds fallen on thermal air and comic suspense.
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Sep 2 07, 09:38
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Group: Gold Member
Posts: 3,822
Joined: 3-August 03
From: Florida
Member No.: 10
Real Name: Elizabeth
Writer of: Poetry
Referred By:Lori Kanter
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Winning Poems for August 2007 Judge Deborah Bogen FIRST PLACE
After Howl III -- Rockin' the Ages by Gary Blankenship Wild Poetry Forumwho loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels --Allen Ginsberg, Howl east of boise they find a cultist who prepared kool-aid for a jim jones when sister Sylvia saw the Virgin Mary in the pond behind the hen house no one paid any attention to her south of soshone they locate a survivalist who sells cranberries in a fruit stand on highway 93 when mama saw Mother Mary in grandpa's fried egg, they turned the kitchen into a shrine ketchum is all weed dealers who tithe to a clapboard church in mountain home Uncle John is still in the attic they leave orofino where every man woman child stray goat is his her its own prophet Christ walked across Lake Coeur d'Alene the day of the parade in honor of President Reagan and no one noticed in the lewiston they come across the holy slots sacred decks hallowed bones mammon's offering to the state the picture of the Garden behind Grandma's bed only cost her $125 in 1973 in soda springs they hit upon a two dollar gal who nightly prays to baby jesus at least twice an hour in an alley behind the suds and pack when the tent revival came to town everyone was there, two members of the cheer squad were visiting relatives the next fall the idaho falls temple is being repainted in a new shade of temple white I dream my guardian angel is on strike the buddhist gate is locked on cable Italian suits beg moloch sings when the roll is called up yonder To invoke the ghost of Ginsberg is to invite a perilous comparison, but this poem manages that difficulty by giving us a series of wild but believable observations that carry the poem's commentary with a cool energy, and make an off-kilter but undeniable kind of sense. The pictures painted here are intense, and build so dramatically upon each other, that even a phrase as short as "Uncle John is still in the attic" becomes a mental vignette, a miniature morality play that the poem asks us to write for ourselves. Thus the poet is both author and instigator -- very Ginsbergesque. --Deborah BogenSECOND PLACE I See God Standing in Stout Grove by Larina Warnock poets.orgHere, Heaven appears in bursts of broken sunlight between treetops swaying with the weight of words; supplication spirals up from bodies unbent, unkneeling. Here, faces appear carved in soft red bark, and limbs stretch earthward as invitations for embrace; gnarled branches curl like arthritic hands without pain. Here, seedlings appear along the frames of the fallen; new trunks rise beside fern and moss over logs lying prone; roots curl over ancient stumps and both survive. Here, redwoods appear in clusters; gods grow upon gods, between gods, within gods--relics of old religions twisting together in perpetual union, continuous creation. Beneath these branches, I know why ancients worshipped trees, why they sought solace in these groves and found them filled with spirit-tinged whispers. I remember you from my youth, Lord. I remember you from a childlike dream. A poem explaining what Heaven (with a capital H) is that uses a decidedly pagan imagery many would think is opposed to heavenly values is immediately interesting—the poet has something he or she is really thinking about. And this poem makes its inquiry via complicated linguistic turns that add to its complexity, e.g., "Here, redwoods appear in clusters; gods grow upon gods,/ between gods, within gods..." This profusion of little-g gods whose referent is clearly vegetative growth tempts us then to re-read the poem as more pagan. But the poet does not allow this simplification closing with "I remember you from my youth, Lord./ I remember you from a childlike dream." --Deborah Bogen THIRD PLACE fulton street hustlers by Allen Itz Bluelineit's eleven in the morning and you can tell the drinkers, the down- but-not- outers, squinting in the mid- day sun as they cross fulton street, leaving their $40-a-week motel room, heading for breakfast at one of the dozen taco shops in the neigh borhood, chorizo and eggs with a side of re-fried beans, two flour tortillas black sludge coffee and six aspirin for the head that won't stop aching until they get their first beer, their scrambled eggs chaser that officially starts the day mostly men, careful with appearances, fresh shined boots, sharp creased jeans and starched long-sleeve cowboy shirts with fake pearl snaps, pool shooters, dart throwers, penny tossers, pinball wizards, and hustlers of most every kind, living on the edge always, on the edge of losing usually, they live on alcohol and beer nuts, cheap meals at flytrap eateries and dark places where the truth is only what you can see in a smoked bar mirror, where pre- tending is easier than not This poem breaks a lot of rules and it knows what it's doing when it does. That's a good thing because you better be on your game when you decide to dispense with capitalization and periods, and when you write in lines so short that one is "the" and another is "down-". But as soon as you start reading "fulton street hustlers" you understand that you are on a fast train meant to knock you off your reading feet, that the poem's rhythm is as purposefully offbeat as the lifestyle of the hustlers it describes with its marvelous eye for the right detail and its fluid command of the line. --Deborah Bogen HONORABLE MENTIONS immeasurableby Dale McLain Wild Poetry ForumIn the year that caught me in its rusty snare, cornered me, rolled me like a bum, I grew an inch. Impossible, you might say. Middle-aged ladies do not grow taller, only wider, sadder, greyer. But it's the truth. I felt every millimeter in my bones. The October sky was closer than it had ever been. From my new perspective I could see things that I'd forgotten. A footstep was a mile. Each heartbeat claimed an hour. So odd, that I was tighter bound than a spool of coarse thread, but felt as if my arms were feathered things unfurled against a coastal wind. In the year when I was laid open by a silvery blade, cut from scalp to toe, I was contained within folded petals a blossom, cotton white and ready for spring's kiss. I bled with joy, a narrow river that went before me as a thin rouged trail I knew was mine. I learned to live unforgiven, came to own a sorrow as deep as a December night and a gladness that danced like stars upon the sea. Things begin so slyly, steal upon us like a summer twilight. I stand altered, a tower dedicated to the next breath drawn. Nothing fits me anymore.
Super Nova by Brenda Nixon Cook Pen ShellsAxl Rose screams, I'm Going To Make You Bleed. Speakers forward, audio gain and bass on eleven. The car shakes. Her energy seeps violet from every pore. She knows there is no containment possible. Maximum overdrive. She longs for everything to stop. For the question that tumbles around in her noisy mind to take a needed rest. She longs for the benefit of sex, hot and hard or a good cry. Her soul wants to crawl from her body and leave. Bags bagged, a one way ticket to somewhere quiet. There are days the question that flies around her brain reminds her of a photograph of a tree in Greece . A tuning fork near the sea, two limbs barren from ocean spray. Growing vines cling to its split trunk, act as foliage and form the question that haunts her. That simple answer is but another question to tumble into nothingness. She hums along Welcome To the Jungle. BARREN by Mitchell Geller About Poetry ForumI built my own constricting carapace from chemicals ingested lavishly, and wished, with fervor, merely to be numb. Insensible, I watched myself become a grim, distorted pasquinade of me, devoid of kindness, sympathy and grace. Insomnia, anxiety and grief have made me recreant, bitter with fear. I know, my love, that you'd be horrified at my behavior since the day you died -- not, as you chaffed, in love within the year, but still marooned on this spiritless reef. Forgive, my love, the arid waste you've seen -- a year from now my garden will be green. Fall Day in the Park by Esther Greenleaf Murer poets.orgIn the lapidary light of the sea, I am a flatfish prostrate on the floor of a cathedral, the eyes on my back attuned to the coruscation of corals, polyps, bryozoa swaying in the current's sunlit blue. Now on dancing eddies I levitate in celebration, vault and sweep and skew, pitch and bank and camber a hymn to overarching glory. Then I sink again, canting like a falling leaf, and rest in the mud, where one day soon my center eye will contemplate the bare ruined reef while the other, the wandering one, keeps watch for green ghosts hovering amid the welter of weeds.
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Sep 2 07, 09:43
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Mosaic Master
Group: Administrator
Posts: 18,892
Joined: 1-August 03
From: Massachusetts
Member No.: 2
Real Name: Lori Kanter
Writer of: Poetry & Prose
Referred By:Imhotep
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Hey - congrats Brenda (bbnixon) for your HM placement for Super Nova in August! A great and fascinating piece! Bravo! ~Cleo
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"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~ J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the RingsCollaboration feeds innovation. In the spirit of workshopping, please revisit those threads you've critiqued to see if the author has incorporated your ideas, or requests further feedback from you. In addition, reciprocate with those who've responded to you in kind. "I believe it is the act of remembrance, long after our bones have turned to dust, to be the true essence of an afterlife." ~ Lorraine M. KanterNominate a poem for the InterBoard Poetry Competition by taking into careful consideration those poems you feel would best represent Mosaic Musings. For details, click into the IBPC nomination forum. Did that poem just captivate you? Nominate it for the Faery award today! If perfection of form allured your muse, propose the Crown Jewels award. For more information, click here! "Worry looks around, Sorry looks back, Faith looks up." ~ Early detection can save your life.MM Award Winner
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Sep 4 07, 05:51
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Babylonian
Group: Gold Member
Posts: 88
Joined: 7-March 07
From: United States
Member No.: 409
Real Name: Brenda Nixon Cook
Writer of: Poetry
Referred By:Sampo
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Lori,
Thank you for the big congrats! I was happily surprised!
Wishing you a wonderful day
:) brenda
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MM Award Winner
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Sep 29 07, 08:53
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Mosaic Master
Group: Administrator
Posts: 18,892
Joined: 1-August 03
From: Massachusetts
Member No.: 2
Real Name: Lori Kanter
Writer of: Poetry & Prose
Referred By:Imhotep
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Winning Poems for September 2007 Judge Deborah Bogen
First Place Beached by Laura Polley Desert Moon Review
I have put on a dress, salted at the hemline
where the little waves tug my ankles and run.
I can see the twitching of the boardwalk from here.
Seagulls and tourists: all bark and push.
Wind arranges everything.
A mime shouts opinions from his personal cage.
I admire his courage.
There is melody in silence. There's an instinct of trees
nestled sad as a woodlouse in those boardwalk veins.
I have put on a dress.
I am walking a coastline between earth and invitation,
where strange heavy birds carry human sounds away.
This poem takes description to the level of invocation as it creates a serious need in the reader to know the import of "I have put on a dress", a simple phrase now heavy with something we can neither name, nor turn away from. The poet's sure touch when portraying tourist and seagulls as "all bark and push" and the mime as shouting from "his personal cage" lull us into a calm which becomes oddly ominous as the poem closes with "I am walking a coastline/ between earth and invitation//where strange heavy bird/carry human sounds away." --Deborah Bogan
Second Place Ghazal of the Honed Knife by Sarah Sloat Desert Moon Review
Undeceived, the body knows the gloom of her.
Right hand the usher, left hand the groom of her.
The fragrance of seasonings enfolds the house
but flesh stays attuned to the perfume of her.
Chair, sink and tablecloth compose a kitchen.
Knuckles, grip and thumb make a room of her.
Switchblade and jack, bread, bowie and pocket--
Christian names will ease into the loom of her.
Pale is the butter, soft ivory the brie;
but yielding knows how bright is the bloom of her.
Thanks to Agha Shahid Ali, the ghazal has entered American poetry's blood stream and this poem showcases the strength of the form. The poem's description of a knife engages us by providing the simple kitchen tool with a presence that is potent and palpable that can be read straightforwardly or as a metaphor. Both the title and ghazal's traditional focus on lost love incline me to the metaphoric reading, but either way, the poet's ease in handling the ghazal form (especially since it is done with a simple lexicon--no fancy "poetic" words here) is a delight. The last line satisfies our desire for the pleasure of both surprise and recognition. --Deborah Bogen
Third Place Prohibited Disorder Kids by Bill Brando About Poetry Forum
the prohibited disorder kids slide greasy down the street with their Kool-Aid hair and black leather jangle past buildings with beerbreath doorways, missing teeth, staggering like old bums pissing on yesterday's news... pitter patter patter "dudn't fuckin' mattah, man," the motto when you're beat-- cigarette burn chancres, banana bruise knuckles tenderizing vacant meat, crunching scattered glass stars under jackboot feet beneath the switchblade moon-- "the world's a fucking tomb, man..." see the prohibited disorder kids tromping rusted punk rock paradisio corrosive soundtrack fast, snuffed out slow with no god but white noise.
Making street-talk work in poems is an art, and this poet uses fantastic inner sound effects to do that, keeping the slangy phrases from becoming a prosey recitation. Take a look at "pitter patter patter/"didn't fuckin mattah, man,"" with its play on the pitter-patter of little feet, and "beneath the switchblade moon--the world's a fucking tomb, man.." followed closely by "tromping rusted punk rock...". The poem wisely interrupts what could be too much hip-hop sing-song with sections of free verse that call to mind what we've all seen, but not described quite so well, e.g., "the prohibited disorder kids/slide greasy/down the street". --Deborah Bogen
Honorable Mention Bronx Swans by Bernard Henrie The Writer's Block
I have forgotten nothing: A sack lunch and dried bread for the aging swan; the underside stained burlap the color of a Bronx pond; the anonymous traffic on Canal street, the concrete bench and park attendant clearing trash.
A woman who visited the shell basin of our meeting place; a monotone in the summer afternoon of gaps and sighs; the azure turn of sky; the park slowed to the barely visible gesture of the swan; the brackish waft of wings and khaki feathers;
glazed beak stamped into dower mud and soured water. The swan left out all night alone as a man who fears an illness, a porch light left burning with no one to see.
Honorable Mention Indian Grass by Rich Stewart The Town
Night full of frog-song and stars. Late summer moon slow to rise. Indian grass whispers like bamboo in the lonesome wind ... The deep midnight wind has a bite, but baby, I could walk all night, Lost darlin'. I could walk all night.
Loose gravel by the road, some creature's little pointed jaw, fallen dogwood petals glitter in such light I could read if I wanted to; there's nothing that I want to read nothing that I want to hear this night.
Just old humaway songs of lonesome whistle blow and trucks on a distant highway and of how you might have picked me.
Now it's just white moonlight, flat on this flexed gravel road and this weight in the crook of my arm and an empty bedroom a mile behind waiting for me to return.
If I did it tonight the old people over the hollow might stir in their big sagging bed. Might say, that there was a shotgun. Might say, there's one old coon gone. Might roll back into dreams.
If I walked back far enough into the hills how long might I lie left alone? Not long enough, I guess, for my bones to rise out clean and bleach white with the possums and deer.
Honorable Mention Once Upon a Time by Eric Linden Mosaic Musings
A herd of cows with calves in tow now graze this meadow, where, not many years ago the two of us wandered, looking for elusive four-leafed clover to bring us luck.
The golden balsamroot of early spring
had burst in bright abandon like stardust sprinkled by wee forest folk who rule the mystic woodlands.
Then later on, roses, wildwood roses graced our much loved hills where we would stroll, enjoying sunshine days in nature's freedom.
Aspen leaves turned gold,
grasses withered, autumn winds brought frosty nights, and rose hips blushed in scarlet.
Along their dusty trails
where once we sought four-leafed clover, cows now wander.
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"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~ J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the RingsCollaboration feeds innovation. In the spirit of workshopping, please revisit those threads you've critiqued to see if the author has incorporated your ideas, or requests further feedback from you. In addition, reciprocate with those who've responded to you in kind. "I believe it is the act of remembrance, long after our bones have turned to dust, to be the true essence of an afterlife." ~ Lorraine M. KanterNominate a poem for the InterBoard Poetry Competition by taking into careful consideration those poems you feel would best represent Mosaic Musings. For details, click into the IBPC nomination forum. Did that poem just captivate you? Nominate it for the Faery award today! If perfection of form allured your muse, propose the Crown Jewels award. For more information, click here! "Worry looks around, Sorry looks back, Faith looks up." ~ Early detection can save your life.MM Award Winner
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Sep 29 07, 08:55
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Mosaic Master
Group: Administrator
Posts: 18,892
Joined: 1-August 03
From: Massachusetts
Member No.: 2
Real Name: Lori Kanter
Writer of: Poetry & Prose
Referred By:Imhotep
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Congrats Eric! (And you thought you weren't VERSED in fv! Ha!) Well done! ~Cleo :
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"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~ J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the RingsCollaboration feeds innovation. In the spirit of workshopping, please revisit those threads you've critiqued to see if the author has incorporated your ideas, or requests further feedback from you. In addition, reciprocate with those who've responded to you in kind. "I believe it is the act of remembrance, long after our bones have turned to dust, to be the true essence of an afterlife." ~ Lorraine M. KanterNominate a poem for the InterBoard Poetry Competition by taking into careful consideration those poems you feel would best represent Mosaic Musings. For details, click into the IBPC nomination forum. Did that poem just captivate you? Nominate it for the Faery award today! If perfection of form allured your muse, propose the Crown Jewels award. For more information, click here! "Worry looks around, Sorry looks back, Faith looks up." ~ Early detection can save your life.MM Award Winner
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Sep 29 07, 09:17
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Group: Bronze Member
Posts: 544
Joined: 3-May 07
From: Central Florida
Member No.: 427
Real Name: Judith Labriola
Writer of: Poetry
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Congratulations Eric...
You truly deserve this, and with one of your first ventures into FV...Way to go my friend. Judi
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Nov 10 07, 10:14
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Mosaic Master
Group: Administrator
Posts: 18,892
Joined: 1-August 03
From: Massachusetts
Member No.: 2
Real Name: Lori Kanter
Writer of: Poetry & Prose
Referred By:Imhotep
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Winning Poems for October 2007 Judge E. Ethelbert Miller FIRST PLACE
Afterglow by Elodie Ackerman The TownWe crossed the country bathed in beatitudes the transmission leaking oil clear across the country toward the Orange glow hovering on the Western horizon, waiting to eat us alive. My bridal veil flowed out the window, my virginity the hood ornament on the old blue Mercury as we tried marriage on for size, rolling the flavor on our tongues like SweetTarts, cheap but tasty. As quickly as we rushed into that foul folly, we hesitated to bring it to a close. Eventually, you collapsed Under the weight of it all, and I, hardened by your rage and drama, signed the papers as quickly as I did the parchment that got us into this mess in the first place. It's time to leave the Golden Promise, retrace that oily trail to its start, where trees still stand after three-hundred years and family welcomes you home, no matter what you've done or where you've gone or who you've become. But it's never quite behind you, that Orange glow. No matter what comes next, it's always there, waiting to remind you that no matter how wise they think you are, how worldly or sophisticated, you're still a damned fool. Just old now, and not so pretty anymore. I like how innocence is thrown against the landscape in "Afterglow." So much said in the third line-- "the transmission leaking oil." Already we known this marriage can't go far. The reference to "Sweet Tarts" seems to capture the tension and arguments within the relationship. When was the last time you saw a reference to Sweet Tarts in a poem. I think I was addicted to them when I was young. I remember I didn't want to share... Even "beauty" disappears by the end of "Afterglow." It's a reminder of what you can't escape and perhaps an indication of the weight of it all. --E. Ethelbert MillerSECOND PLACE A Woman of Summer by Nochipa Pen ShellsTell me what is more beautiful than strength of a life well-lived. My hands, lean and firm, are scarred by youthful poverty. while my sculpted arms, sinewy and brown, were chiseled by a farmer's hoe. and these legs, are solid and shapely, strong as trees grown from hill-treading My wit is sharp as tobacco spears from traps of star-dream slayers while my heart beats steady for hundreds of children who listened to my song. So, now that you know I am not a T.V. woman-child, am I less lovely? "A Woman of Summer" celebrates the female body as well as work. It embraces the strength of masculinity by "claiming" it and challenging stereotypes. Women can be beautiful and hard too. The tercets create their own column of power and resemble a tree trunk. This poem will not disappear until one answers the question raised in its last stanza. Although the title of the poem makes a reference to summer, the woman described here is one for all seasons. --E. Ethelbert Miller THIRD PLACE A Good Day to Die by Tim J. Brennan About Poetry Forum(i) September in Wisconsin is like spent wood burning; living near the Chippewa river where final letters are written, hunger is fed its last supper and breezes cross river water as softly as a woman's failing breath at the bottom of her hour (ii) by Friday I want her kneaded into rye, set on a warm window sill covered with a damp towel, allowing her to rise by morning (iii) by Sunday she couldn't see me anymore; it was raining and I watched my words, pale as newsprint, running together; being no longer useful, I threw them away (iv) a blue carnation, white chrysanthemums; all relative, withering in lieu of last rites I love the language of the first section of "A Good Day To Die." I kept saying Chippewa river and wondering what it looked like in September. The four sections of this poem capture the passing of time very well. There is an Eastern sentiment hidden in each part; it seems to embrace the visual beauty echoed by the white space between lines. Why must flowers die? --E. Ethelbert MillerHONORABLE MENTIONS The Last Bus Home by Judith Anne Labriola Yay Judi! Mosaic MusingsEach day at two, I read to her, she sits there with her thinning hair in wisps around a wrinkled face. Old age has trapped her in this place; she cries at night and thinks no one can hear. A picture taken long ago is on her stand, I wonder if it's wise to focus on the ravages of age. I see her gaze at it, then look away. At three I bring her tea and Lorna Doones, She drinks, then pats my hand and says "I love you nurse, now get my coat and purse for I must go -- the last bus home is leaving soon and there's no time to stay here in this room!" Millstone by Kathleen Vibbert Pen ShellsOn the steps of St. James, I'm a millstone. A love poem. A Quaker lady. Rare birds all around: tails float toward the sun with an ease that makes me envious. I leave my idols outside as Mass begins. Smell the incense; resist the urge to taste holy water take my rosary from its convenient pocket hammer down prayers from between my knuckles. Communion cuts my tongue with its straight razor. Stained glass swabs my spirit like rubbing alcohol. I leave my sins inside, emerge like oil from an olive sack. The street is dark. My bones catch on my clothes. A night heron waits. In heels, I hadn't counted on the cobblestone: The radiant sections of motor oil and rain shapes into the heads of saints. How can I walk over them once more? Exchange by DJ Vorreyer The TownStrolling a silent beach, air sharp with smell of salt and fish, I stop to uncover a hidden stone from beneath still sand and whispering surf. I turn the treasure over and over in my hand, both worn, eroded by time and weather. Green veins wind across its ochre face like meridians on a miniature globe. This moment is the whole world, flawed and stunning, cold and warm, still yet churning. Although the stone reminds me, soothes me, I toss it back with a flip of the wrist, watch it skip then sink into undulating waves of black. One may never know the trials that etch a surface, which rough edges worn smooth, which tumbling journeys now calmed, which longings brimmed to the lips then receded unspoken, washed clean like the stone, the heart, back into the waiting sea. Ungodly Apartment Building by Teresa White Wild Poetry ForumI wait on the stoop of a Sunday morning and never once seen nobody slicked up like Uncle Jake used to be or any lady all fancy with a hat. Why I couldn't count one cherry nor bird to eat it just these woolies come down over their prissy pink ears and my guess is not a one was headed up to the Baptists nor the Catholics neither. Lil' Tim had a whistle and sometimes he'd join me and give 'er a blow when the rouged-up frillies from Apartment 2-B come draggin' out 'bout ten. Mama wouldn't say but I knew they weren't telling nursery rhymes to rich Mr. Black. That Tim, even he didn't believe in Jesus so at night 'fore I settled right fine in bed, I prayed hard that those fancy ladies would see the light and now I had to add Tim too.
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"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~ J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the RingsCollaboration feeds innovation. In the spirit of workshopping, please revisit those threads you've critiqued to see if the author has incorporated your ideas, or requests further feedback from you. In addition, reciprocate with those who've responded to you in kind. "I believe it is the act of remembrance, long after our bones have turned to dust, to be the true essence of an afterlife." ~ Lorraine M. KanterNominate a poem for the InterBoard Poetry Competition by taking into careful consideration those poems you feel would best represent Mosaic Musings. For details, click into the IBPC nomination forum. Did that poem just captivate you? Nominate it for the Faery award today! If perfection of form allured your muse, propose the Crown Jewels award. For more information, click here! "Worry looks around, Sorry looks back, Faith looks up." ~ Early detection can save your life.MM Award Winner
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Nov 10 07, 10:16
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Mosaic Master
Group: Administrator
Posts: 18,892
Joined: 1-August 03
From: Massachusetts
Member No.: 2
Real Name: Lori Kanter
Writer of: Poetry & Prose
Referred By:Imhotep
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Congratulations Judi on your HM! ~Cleo
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"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~ J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the RingsCollaboration feeds innovation. In the spirit of workshopping, please revisit those threads you've critiqued to see if the author has incorporated your ideas, or requests further feedback from you. In addition, reciprocate with those who've responded to you in kind. "I believe it is the act of remembrance, long after our bones have turned to dust, to be the true essence of an afterlife." ~ Lorraine M. KanterNominate a poem for the InterBoard Poetry Competition by taking into careful consideration those poems you feel would best represent Mosaic Musings. For details, click into the IBPC nomination forum. Did that poem just captivate you? Nominate it for the Faery award today! If perfection of form allured your muse, propose the Crown Jewels award. For more information, click here! "Worry looks around, Sorry looks back, Faith looks up." ~ Early detection can save your life.MM Award Winner
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Nov 10 07, 11:50
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Group: Gold Member
Posts: 3,822
Joined: 3-August 03
From: Florida
Member No.: 10
Real Name: Elizabeth
Writer of: Poetry
Referred By:Lori Kanter
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Congratulations Judi - Congratulations on a Well Deserved Honor
I knew that poem would get acknowledged - It is a very powerful poem!
Hugs, and Good Luck with Future Nominations ...
Liz
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Nov 10 07, 13:31
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Group: Bronze Member
Posts: 544
Joined: 3-May 07
From: Central Florida
Member No.: 427
Real Name: Judith Labriola
Writer of: Poetry
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I would like to thank everyone who helped with suggestions on this poem.
Posting in a workshop is a very helpful resource to achieving the best version of our work. It is our poem seen through other's eyes, and that is what we want to achieve.
Thanks All, ((((hugs))) Judi
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Dec 29 07, 19:30
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Mosaic Master
Group: Administrator
Posts: 18,892
Joined: 1-August 03
From: Massachusetts
Member No.: 2
Real Name: Lori Kanter
Writer of: Poetry & Prose
Referred By:Imhotep
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There was no November Comp...
FYI
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"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~ J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the RingsCollaboration feeds innovation. In the spirit of workshopping, please revisit those threads you've critiqued to see if the author has incorporated your ideas, or requests further feedback from you. In addition, reciprocate with those who've responded to you in kind. "I believe it is the act of remembrance, long after our bones have turned to dust, to be the true essence of an afterlife." ~ Lorraine M. KanterNominate a poem for the InterBoard Poetry Competition by taking into careful consideration those poems you feel would best represent Mosaic Musings. For details, click into the IBPC nomination forum. Did that poem just captivate you? Nominate it for the Faery award today! If perfection of form allured your muse, propose the Crown Jewels award. For more information, click here! "Worry looks around, Sorry looks back, Faith looks up." ~ Early detection can save your life.MM Award Winner
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Dec 29 07, 19:45
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Mosaic Master
Group: Administrator
Posts: 18,892
Joined: 1-August 03
From: Massachusetts
Member No.: 2
Real Name: Lori Kanter
Writer of: Poetry & Prose
Referred By:Imhotep
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Winning Poems for December 2007 Judge E. Ethelbert Miller FIRST PLACE Ruth in Ward 3A Imagines Herself as a Tree by Brenda Levy Tate Pen ShellsBefore first light, I slip into a spruce -- its roots (and mine) old ropes that tie the clay to bind me gently, while the stars infuse me with a balm of resin, salt and spray. My blood is balsam now, and moves as slow as sunrise. With a prickling in my chest, the alto sap upwells and spreads; its low ring-singing stirs the shorebirds from their rest. Below me wheel the herring gulls and hawks that drift toward my cliff. A willet cries above the pearling tide, and on the rocks a stranger's cat holds morning in her eyes. I shed my bark as dawn releases me. Tomorrow, I shall dream myself the sea. I like the title of this poem and how it works with the sonnet structure. One is pulled into the world of mental illness and it's the world of nature as well as imagination. This is a poem of transformation and a rejection of restrictions. Ruth is able to escape the hospital ward. The closing couplet makes this poem a winner. I want Ruth to believe she is the sea tomorrow. --E. Ethelbert MillerSECOND PLACE Northland Solstice by Eric Linden Yay Eric! Mosaic MusingsSnow lay deep that cold December on my Dawson City home, shrouding mountains, lakes and rivers far and wide, including Nome. Not much moved; our world was frozen from Old Crow to Watson Lake. Even ravens had forsaken this harsh land, for pity's sake. Darkness dwelled; it stopped and dallied, swallowed up the midnight sun. How I cursed this devil northland and its grip I couldn't shun. Came the day I went out walking; all was quiet, skies pale blue; in the woods, those white-clad pine trees sparkled like old Manitou. Could it be that I heard carols coming from those soundless hills? Solstice in this frigid northland spells more, brighter winter chills. "What would Jack London think of this poem? Here is the Yukon. Dawson City a place where people went looking for gold? This poem however captures the moment more than history. One is a witness to the landscape and seeing its beauty through the eyes of a poet. Nothing moves -- except the language. What lies beyond the cold and darkness? What brighter winter chills? I like the question this poem asks -- "Could it be that I heard carols/coming from those soundless hills?" --E. Ethelbert MillerTHIRD PLACE Crossing at Night by Maryann Corbett The WatersThe rain-slick road that multiplied the rush of light. The striding void, man-shaped, vague as something sighed, suggestive, rogue. So nearly nothing. Does even he believe his own solidity, ghosting across the dark ahead? Closer. Close. The grip, the gasping cry brake skid the pounding chest aware, aware in an emptiness of something there. I found this poem haunting in a mystical sense. Since I don't know how to drive, I've never experienced that need to avoid something on a rain-slick road. Still, I like how this poem is almost crafted to resemble a road. Lines seem to collapse on each other. The words "void," "vague," "nothing" and "emptiness" increase the blackness of the night. What is the shape of things unseen? What do we fear at the crossing? --E. Ethelbert MillerHONORABLE MENTIONS My Mother's Bones by Laurie Byro Desert Moon ReviewWhen I crawled through my mother's bones I'd like to say, they were bent over me like birches, that the tips of her pelvis-march scraped against me in that narrow place. But babies aren't made this way. Beauty is messy; the dark box I return to just before I wake is a field with a thatched cupboard, every kind of leaf as if she collected me among these pressed wax paper plates. I'd seen tall, holy trees in Muir Forest and me on my swaying stem, a Lady's orchid, her newest treasure, swaddled and given up to her in a room with open windows. Crushed yellow and scarlet autumn hands reached in and settled on our laboring bed. Rust ripped the sheets, they'd call me an autumn flower. Candles sputtered and grew down, white and pure and healing. Each relative and ghost was there. She cradles me. She holds my soul over a flame. This life is messy, Mother. I carry your bones in a paper sack like a picnic lunch. When I release us to the air we tumble like acrobats, blister the hardened earth with our fall. Mersey Mersey Me by Christopher T. George Desert Moon ReviewMum, you have asked that I cast your ashes in the River Mersey, the muddy Mersey I see broil behind as you stand windblown on the Pier Head landing stage, Seacombe ferry surging to nudge giant tires with a rubbery kiss as sailors tie the ferry up, the muddy Mersey that flowed down the bottom of our road, at Otterspool prom: expanse of sun-glinting gooey flats at low tide decorated with ditched pram, kiddie's bike: scene I painted in the Sixties, that hung in your living room, til I gave it to grass-high friends. Mersey Mersey me, I think of you as I attend a Ripper event in a big white marquee beside the Liverpool Cricket Club: rain clouds sweeping in from the distant Welsh hills, over the Mersey's whitecapped waves, past the benign cream stucco walls of Battlecrease House, where lived James Maybrick, who may have been the Ripper, Mersey Mersey me, I think of you as I scatter your ashes. Time Gone Cold by Linda Balboni Yay Lindi! Mosaic MusingsThe time has gone, my heart's grown cold, I miss your love and stories told, your smiling face, like golden dawn, my heart's grown cold, the time has gone. Our talks at night, your gentle voice to spill my soul, your ears, my choice, dear dad, your laughter made things right, your gentle voice, our talks at night. How deep the ache through tearful eyes, to know you've left, can't share our ties, a plan from God, your soul to take, through tearful eyes, how deep the ache.. For all my life, I will believe your presence guides me, yet I grieve for you to be here; end my strife, I will believe, for all my life.
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"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~ J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the RingsCollaboration feeds innovation. In the spirit of workshopping, please revisit those threads you've critiqued to see if the author has incorporated your ideas, or requests further feedback from you. In addition, reciprocate with those who've responded to you in kind. "I believe it is the act of remembrance, long after our bones have turned to dust, to be the true essence of an afterlife." ~ Lorraine M. KanterNominate a poem for the InterBoard Poetry Competition by taking into careful consideration those poems you feel would best represent Mosaic Musings. For details, click into the IBPC nomination forum. Did that poem just captivate you? Nominate it for the Faery award today! If perfection of form allured your muse, propose the Crown Jewels award. For more information, click here! "Worry looks around, Sorry looks back, Faith looks up." ~ Early detection can save your life.MM Award Winner
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